Underdogs and Unexpected Heroes
by aqaws321
Summary: "It starts like this: Tony's strapped to an operating table, waiting for the doctors that have captured him to enter the room. He's trying to stay calm and cool and collected- and maybe panicking just a bit- when the metal door opens and all bets are off. As doctors go, though, the blond kid that enters looks like, well, a kid."


**Horrible title, I know. If anyone thinks of a better one, please let me know.**

 **Warnings for: Canon-typical violence, implied/referenced torture. Nothing overly graphic or talked about, though, and absolutely nothing sexual.**

 **I don't know, I just really wanted a fic like this? I was going to go to sleep and then this plot bunny hit me.**

* * *

It starts like this:

Tony's strapped to an operating table, waiting for the doctors that have captured him to enter the room. He's trying to stay calm and cool and collected- and maybe panicking just a bit- when the metal door opens and all bets are off.

As doctors go, though, the kid that enters looks like, well, a kid. He's not short, but he's not tall, either, and the way his ribs are visible underneath the gray rag of a shirt that he's wearing speaks of days- weeks- months of imprisonment. It takes Tony a minute to realize that the kid isn't alone. His eyes are on the ground, and there's a large, tanned hand on the back of his shirt, clutching his collar.

As the kid comes farther into the room, the owner of the hand becomes visible. It's a huge, burly guy, with a gleam of cruelty in his eyes that's sharpened when the man yanks on the kid's shirt collar, forcing him to an abrupt stop. The kid stumbles, looks up, and stares right at Tony with a gaze that is both seeing and unseeing. Intense blue eyes bore into Tony, desperation and pain running through the gaze in equal measures.

Tony shivers.

He's not sure what the purpose of this is, because after a moment, the kid's hauled away again by his shirt collar. As the blond beings his hand up to try and steady himself, the man leading him shoves him to the ground and kicks him swiftly in the ribs.

Tony shouts in protest, straining against the restraints that have him almost completely immobilized. "Hey! Leave him alone!"

The man looks over at the inventor and the kid peeks up too, looking out through thin, bruised arms that have been thrust up in an attempt to protect himself. The brunet strides over, sneering at Tony, and snaps, "You'll shut up if you know what's good for you."

All Tony can think is, _that's the most cliche threat I've ever heard._

He says so, too.

The man snarls, raising a hand to retaliate, when the kid suddenly lunges from his huddled position on the floor, tackling the man in the midsection and throwing him back against the nearby wall. The enraged man grabs the blond by the throat, using his strength to slam the blond against the wall and hold him there, his feet barely brushing the ground as his fingers scrabble at the man's tight grip.

As the kid's fight fades along with the oxygen in his lungs, the guard finally lets him go. Tony watches in sick fascination as the young man slides to the ground, hacking and coughing and gasping for air. The older man lets him have a moment, and then-

Then he kicks the kid in the side, _hard_. The kid emits a noise that would've been a yelp had he had enough air in his lungs, but instead comes out as a sort of squeak.

The man reaches down and hauls the kid to his feet by his weirdly blond hair, and Tony's fists clench in anger as he realizes that he cannot help. The man grabs the collar of the younger man's shirt again and pulls him out of the room the same way they came in.

It's only after they leave that Tony realizes that the kid successfully diverted the guard's attention away from Tony by using himself as a distraction.

It's a bit disturbing, if he's honest.

* * *

The doctors don't enter the room, and Tony's left waiting for- he doesn't know how long. It's long enough for his mind to drift back to memories of less happy days, of the cave, of-

Suffice to say that he has to pull himself out of several panic attacks.

* * *

The door opens again, and Tony braces himself for the reality that the doctors- scientists?- have come, and they're here to experiment on him.

However, this is not the case.

The blond kid slips into the room, his head low and his gaze darting from side to side. His hands are shaking, and, as he slides silently closer to Tony, the older man can see the distinct shade of green that the bruises around his neck have turned.

Tony can also see bruises littered on his torso through the holes in his shirt, as well as more than a few burns that look like they've come from a taser or a cattle prod or something of the sort- certainly something extremely painful.

Tony tilts his head back against the cold metal table and breathes deeply.

The kid's grabbed a couple things from the nearby table, but it's nothing that Tony can see too clearly. However, as the blond approaches, he's doing something with his hands. Tony realizes what it is, and blurts in disbelief, "Is that an actual paper clip?"

The young man starts, flinching from the sudden noise, and drops the paper clip on the ground. He crouches quickly to pick it up, but Tony curses mentally when the kid stands again and the older man can see that the shaking has become worse than before.

The younger man bends over Tony's restraints, inserting the paper clip in the keyhole along with another paper clip that Tony hadn't noticed before.

It takes the blond's pale fingers a few seconds, and he has to stop and take a breath when the shaking becomes too bad, but he eventually gets the first shackle unlocked. Tony relishes the feeling of the metal being removed from his wrist and waits impatiently for the kid to do the same for the other three.

Finally, Tony's free.

He stands, stretching for just a moment, before hurrying over to the computer he noticed in the corner. Booting it up immediately, Tony begins to hack. He finds that the security of whatever incompetent nincompoops have kidnapped him this time is sadly (or perhaps not sadly) lacking, and he has no trouble sending out a message to the Avengers and to S.H.I.E.L.D.

After he's finished with that, Tony turns to the kid, who's remained by the metal table like a lost little puppy. This mental image is not diminished when Tony notices that the kid's huddled in on himself, looking lost.

And his hands are still shaking.

Tony steps towards the kid in an attempt to- reassure him? comfort him?- do something, and the kid flinches back so violently that he rams his hip into the unyielding metal table in what is no doubt a very painful manner.

Tony stays where he is.

* * *

The pair stays that was for nine minutes and thirty-two seconds, according to the clock above the doorway. At nine minutes and thirty-three seconds, the door is rammed open, and there stands Steve- Captain America- in all his patriotic glory.

Tony is suddenly struck with the realization that Steve doesn't look that much older than this kid, and a metaphorical lightbulb goes off over his head. "Steve," he says quietly, "Why don't you take off your cowl?"

Cap frowns at him in confusion, and Tony makes a subtle motion to the other occupant of the room. The taller man's eyes widen in comprehension, and he slides his cowl off as he takes a step forward.

The kid flinches backwards again, this time shuffling back a few steps until his back hits the wall and his blue eyes flare wide in surprise and panic.

Steve stops even as Tony begins to motion him to do so.

Clint shows up outside the door then, and takes in the situation with one quick glance. He sets his bow down outside the door, removes his quiver, and says in a low voice. "The compound's clear. I need both of you to listen to me."

Tony, for once, makes no remarks about this. Clint's been trained for this sort of thing. He and Steve have not. The genius gives a slight nod, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Steve does the same. Clint says, in that same low voice, "Okay. Steve, you come out of the room first. Slowly. No sudden moves. Keep your face towards the kid."

Cap obeys Clint's directions to the letter, and, when directed by the archer, Tony does the same. He stand by Steve, a few feet away from the doorway, as Clint advances a few slow steps towards the kid, keeping his posture open and his stance unthreatening.

After a few minutes of murmuring things that are too soft for Tony to hear- but not too soft for Steve, if the grim look that is slowly enveloping his face is any indicator- the kid untenses, just a hair.

The bits and pieces of the murmuring that Tony can hear seem to become more encouraging, and Clint finally succeeds in getting the kid to come within arms' reach.

The archer, with a few more minutes of patience, leads the kid through the hallway and towards the compound exit. Steve grabs Clint's gear and follows him, and Tony follows in the wake of the team leader. Steve quizzes him as they walk, asking what happened, if he's been injured.

Tony thinks of how he was almost hurt and how the kid distracted the guard, and swallows down bile.

* * *

They sit in the medical department on the helicarrier, waiting for Tony to be given a clean bill of health. The team's got a debriefing scheduled for the afternoon, after they've all gotten some more food in them.

As for the kid, well, Clint's stayed near him this whole time, and the kid's been given a blanket and a bed in medical while he's being checked out. He's apparently a government agent that went missing on a deep-cover mission three weeks ago, and his partner is on his way to pick him up while his boss deals with Fury and the question of how the two agencies will do the debriefing, as both want to know what happened.

Three weeks. Three weeks in captivity being tortured- for information, most likely- is a long time, especially for a twenty-two-year old (according to his file, which Fury left lying in medical- _completely_ accidentally, no doubt) that looks like he's on the wrong side of twenty.

Limp blond hair flops in the kid's face as he glances around as the air conditioning in the helicarrier hums a bit; the flinch that racks his thin body is almost-but-not-quite successfully hidden.

Then, after fifteen minutes of the team silently watching the kid and the kid staring back at them with big blue eyes that are glassy and dazed but fiercely determined not to show fear, a man walks into medical.

He's tall and broad and tan, and he's looking worriedly around in search of something. The guy's eyes light up when he sees the kid, and a worried, "Angus!" escapes him as he steps into the room.

The man's eyes aren't even draw to the Avengers after a quick glance to see if they present a threat, and then he's being tackled around the waist by a skinny blond kid whose ribs are sharp enough to be counted and who's bruised beyond belief, but whose eyes are filled with relief.

The blond fists his hands in the older man's jacket so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and the man's arms come up around and encircle the kid as he pulls him close. The kid buries his head in the older man's chest and takes a deep breath for the first time he got here and, finally, Tony knows that he's going to be okay.

* * *

It ends like this:

The Avengers are debriefed, and, as they're about to leave, the man from earlier waylays them. His name's Jack, and he's got about a decade and a half on the kid. Jack talks to them outside of medical, in a hallway that's pretty much empty, but still in sight of the room where his partner's medical examination is ongoing.

Jack says a few words, quiet and sincere, and then asks for a moment alone with Tony. The inventor's not sure what the younger man wants, but Jack pulls a scrap of paper and a pen from his pocket and grins sheepishly, saying, "He'd never forgive me if I didn't get him your autograph."

Tony remembers how the still-visible bruises around the kid's neck came into being, and signs the scrap of paper. He thinks of how the kid must've somehow managed to escape from his captors and get into the room Tony was being held by himself, as well as the way he didn't hesitate in grabbing the paperclips to release Tony from his restraints, and adds his phone number.

Jack smiles and gives a brief nod of thanks, then heads back to his partner without a glance back. Tony watches as the door to the blond's medical room opens briefly, then swings shut on the sight of Jack slinging an arm around the younger man's shoulder and the kid leaning into the older man.

 _Yeah_ , Tony thinks, _the kid's going to be just fine._

* * *

 **Hope y'all enjoyed, and Happy Holidays!**


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